We hope you and your loved ones had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the rest of this holiday season.

Now that the pleasantries are over (LOL), this notification is to remind you that although you may have visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads, our E-Rate clock is still ticking.

You may receive additional outreach from our staff this week for information critical to completing your E-rate applications accurately and efficiently. Please don’t ignore these e-mails! We are asking that you respond with the information requested before you leave for the winter holiday break so that there are no unnecessary delays to processing of your E-rate applications. Please don’t hesitate to contact your dedicated consultant if you have any questions about these requests.

New FCC Survey Questions and Budget

The FCC has instituted new data-gathering features in the Form 471 that require applicants to provide information on their Internet connectivity and on-campus network needs. We have prepared an online form for you to complete and submit this information to us, along with the budget information we request every year. Ray Malcor and Nicole Esparza from our team will be reaching out to you with web links to your District’s specific survey this week, please don’t ignore their emails! The survey should take only minutes to complete. If you need any assistance in completing these surveys, please contact Ray or Nicole at (888) 944-7798.

Discount Information

Each year, we ask you to provide official reports to substantiate the free and reduced lunch eligibility for students enrolled at your schools. For our customers in California, we will ask for the standard reports for October, such as CalPads and CNIPs, along with a request for you to identify any schools that may be participating in the USDA’s Community Eligibility Provision (“CEP”) program. For our customers in other States, we will ask that your standard reporting forms be sent to us. Leticia Ortiz from our team will be in touch with you with more details so, please don’t ignore her emails either!!!!!

We ask that you please respond to our team’s requests within a few days. The sooner we receive this information from you, the sooner we can get your applications into USAC’s system for processing.

The FCC has established a performance target for USAC to have all 2015 funding commitments issued by September 1, and we want to make sure your District’s applications are first in line in front of the more than 40,000 applications USAC will likely have to process this year.

If you have any questions or concerns about your specific situation, please contact your CSM Consultants right away!

As always, we welcome your feedback and comments and if you have an idea for an alert or some other topic of discussion, be sure to pass it along to your dedicated CSM Team.